This disclosure relates to a technique for providing an application with an interface to a composite network service. A composite network service can use any combination of multiple network services, multiple service providers, multiple service networks, and multiple communication sessions. An application requesting a composite network service may be offered by a service provider, a network operator, or a third-party partner. For example, the interface may be provided as a service using an application enablement suite. This disclosure describes exemplary embodiments that provide a web-based application with an interface that includes an application program interface (API) container associated with a service composition framework (SCF). The API container provides the interface to the desired composite network service. An exemplary API container may include composite service logic and composite enabler logic, composite normalization logic, or both composite enabler logic and composite normalization logic. A localized weather forecast is discloses as an exemplary composite network service. However, various embodiments of the methods and apparatus described herein may be used in conjunction with providing any type of network application with an interface to any type of composite network service.
The Parlay framework is meant to be able to map native interface specifications of solo applications, such as a short messaging service (SMS) application or a location application, etc., to respective Parlay-based specifications. Parlay is about mapping the interface protocol for the same service, like mapping the native interface of SMS with a corresponding Parlay/representational state transfer (REST) for SMS or mapping the native interface of location with a corresponding Parlay/REST for location. In other words, Parlay doesn't combine SMS with location or location with privacy or XDMS with location or PIM with location and so on. Parlay just maps the static parameters for an API of a single service.
The Application Exposure Suite (AES) is a product offered by Alcatel-Lucent of Paris, France that is an end-to-end solution which provides network operators with the ability to expose APIs to both external third-party and internal applications in a secure and controlled manner. A service composition framework (SCF) is an element within the AES. The SCF provides an extensible framework for creating new composite/orchestrated web service APIs.
For these and other reasons, there is a need to provide a solution to providing an application with an interface to a composite network service that is robust, scalable, and expandable to dynamically accommodate requests for composite network services that combine diverse services across various types of networks using a variety of technological solutions.